Playing Discworld: Help, Please

[Macbeth]

I've had GURPS Discworld for while, and been waiting for a game. I now have a chance to run it for a one shot at my campus gaming club, and now I'm faced with a very interesting problem: how do you make a Discworld adventure that retains the pratchett style while still running well?

I want to stay as true to the books as I can (not too much combat, slightly humourus), but still tsay in the same vein as your average fantasy adventure.

My current plan is to have a minor crossover by elves. Since all tha characters will be pregenerated, I will have at least one creative (myabe a musician or guerilla mime ) character, who the elves take an interest in, and now plan to take. I think this plan gives me a good mixture of 'standard' adventure combat and such with a good chance of some Discworld roleplaying.

I'm not totally satisifed with this idea. Could anybody give me more ideas on how to run a Discworld adventure? I think my adventure as it stands is a good starting point, but it still needs work.

Here are some more Discworld elements that I may try to work in:
Nac Mac Feegle
Witches
Assassins
.303 Bookworm
Casanunda
And any other elements (or elephants) that just scream "DISCWORLD"

 

[Savage Wombat]

Well, as the GURPS: Discworld book points out, sometimes the best you can do is give the players Discworld characters and hope they roleplay well. Trying to make a silly adventure doesn't work well. PTerry's written about the elves twice now, and neither time were they at all funny.

Basically - throw in Discworld arcana, like the aforementioned bookworm. There's a scene in a Discworld Also adventure where, for no real reason, the party wakes up to find a village has sprung up around them in the night - hermit elephants, don't you know. I'd even suggest preparing a few Footnotes, so that when you have expository narrative, you can drop in a silly remark.

Most of all, when the players make the effort to play Discworldesque, reward them with success. It moves the story along, and gets the players to work towards.

 

[Macbeth]

My idea with the elves was to make it not-so-funny towards the end, and to leave my self a good device for keeping the story from being too light hearted. Thanks for your advice, Savage Wombat, I'll have to consider that...

More help, please?


P.S. The footnote idea is AWESOME! Consider it *yoinked*

 

[Psychotic Jim]

I would say that the best thing to do would be to do something humorous but make it meaningful sort of humor, satirizing something or another from the real world, but with a life message woven under all the laughs.

You might take something from standard D&D and stand it on its head, like maybe drow/dark elves would be something fun to parody. Perhaps there is a *new* strain of elves with coal black skin (perhaps from being out in the sun too much) that are good instead of evil (since standard Discworld elves are heartless bastards) and are much more powerful magical ability wise. Except that a whole bunch of the more adventuresome sun-burnt elves are turning back to their evil roots and have twin-belaying pin fighting style. A twisted version of the D&D "Drizzt" phenomenon .

 

[Elder James]

Some important Discworld factors to take into account:

Million to one chances crop up nine times out of ten! (Remind the players of this occassionally with sage advice from the likes of NPC's such as Mustrum Ridcully and Sgt Colon, and watch as they make things as difficult as possible for themselves to ensure their million to one chances crop up!)

The heroes (unless they are the likes of Cohen and Hrun the Barbarians) are generally less well armed than the badguys, but this shouldn't stop them from succeeding. Rincewind took on the Sourceror with half a brick in a sock.

Do some reading up on a few of the characters and NPC's you want to appear in the game. If you are in Ankh-Morpork, have a few of the more well known guard make an occassional cameo. Reading up on some choice characters beforehand will give you a better idea of how they behave. And you can even quote occassional lines word for word.

Hope these points help a little, and good luck!

 

[Mark]

Have some pre-written appearences ready for Death in case anyone loses a character, have everything stop for everyone else, and give them a chance to plead for their lives as they are escorted away...

 

[Dispater]

Well I thought about it a lot, and all I came up with was this>

DWARVEN BATTLE BREAD
Exotic Martial Weapon*
Dmg: 2d10
Crit: 15-20 x4

*dwarves gain this feat for free at 1st level

:-/

 

[shilsen]

To get the real Discworld feel, here are a couple of suggestions:

Allusions. Lots and lots of allusions, whether to literature, history, pop culture, etc. Obviously you need to make this stuff which your players will catch onto, so if they're not particularly well-read then you shouldn't try to get as abstruse as Pratchett sometimes does.

Always take things through to the logical conclusion that most people haven't considered. For example, if everyone knows how vampires are killed, it makes perfect sense that some vampire will try to work around those weaknesses, as the count in Carpe Jugulum does by feeding his kids garlic till they're immune to it. Or more simply - Klatchian coffee. 'Nuff said.

 

[Robbert Raets]

Technology. Try to introduce a new bit of Disc Tech once in a while. Doesn't matter if it works properly or if it's very dangerous.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

I've had GURPS Discworld for while, and been waiting for a game. I now have a chance to run it for a one shot at my campus gaming club, and now I'm faced with a very interesting problem: how do you make a Discworld adventure that retains the pratchett style while still running well?

This is a response from my SO after reading this (she doesn't have
an account) but figured that I should pass these ideas on to you.

my thoughts - read over "the truth" "moving pictures" "feet of clay"

involve the history monks, dwarves and golems

while the idea of death appearing is good - history monks have the ability to show up stop time and make that minor change that levers for the million to one chance.

don't forget the prohibition of that certain number and have the .303, when it appears in groups of that forbidden number, create the postulation of a prophecy about to pass - this gives the element of dire and urgent need - IE when the worm congregates in forbidden numbers the evil shall rise to complete his domination.